Most, if not all, of the retailers who sell the parts I need have a sales and support email listed on their site.

The bot would respond by asking about the part in question and offering some basic product guidance.

Ive saved a ton of time, I can search for other parts, the retailer has made a sale, and a human who would otherwise be tasked with responding to my email has moved on to more complex and important activities.

I want a chatbot for more than sales and support; I want one for almost every situation where email is the preferred mode of communication.

If chatbots replaced email in a more obvious way, Id have my answer almost immediately.

Every year across Europe, the number of trees that commercial forests lose to storms is equivalent to the annual amount of timber felled in Poland.

Researchers use various modelling techniques to help forest managers predict which trees are at risk of damage, but none are sufficiently accurate.

The forestry industry attempts to reduce the risk of wind damage in various ways, including harvesting trees at a younger ageand thinning forests earlier to increase the long-term stability of the trees.

Modelling techniques also exist to predict storm damage to individual trees, based on things like their height, width and more general forest characteristics such as soil type.

The new approach also provides new insights to forestry managers, for example highlighting the factors that most influence susceptibility to damage such as tree density which in turn helps them to develop better forest management plans for the future.

Varun Kashiv, director of business development at Web Spider, the company behind the event2mobile app platform, says its event chatbot, Eva, has multiple uses, from serving as an assistant to being an information booth.

Elias gives the example of an event at the Javits Center in New York City when several session attendees texted Betty the Bot about an audio speaker that wasnt working.

Both Sciens.io and Web Spider also offer event apps, as well as bots, but Kashiv says a bot is not a replacement for an app.

Betty, a Sciens.io bot, recorded a lot of attendees asking about water concession stands at an event in Florida, so at the next event in Los Angeles, the organizers made sure that there was water available everywhere.

Elias also notes another bonus feature: By opting to text the chatbot, attendees are giving their cell phone numbers to the event planner, which is very handy in case of emergency.

Fast-food restaurants are working to provide experiences through mobile and digital channels to meet customer preferences and differentiate themselves from competitors in the crowded fast-food ecosystem.

Domino’s has long-term ambitions of being a leader in the fast-food chain world by weaving emerging tech into its daily operations,and the introduction of Dom to automate phone orders is another step toward that goal.

The growing popularity of virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant points to the potential that voice tech could have for companies looking to streamline operations like placing orders and checking order statuses, especially for those like Domino’s that already see 65% of U.S. sales take place on digital…

The testing of Dom and scheduled rollout comes as the company continues to invest in various mobile technologies to improve customer service and differentiate itself from competitors in the crowded fast-food space.

Earlier this month, Domino’s released a mobile gameto highlight how people can order via phone, online or in store and letloyalty customers win points that can be redeemed for free food.

The BBC is really worried by a new tactic by fake news propagandists and fraudsters who are exploiting the rise of chat apps to spread false content carrying the broadcasters trusted branding.

The BBC last week felt obliged to issue a formal warning after a clip purporting to show the BBC reporting on the outbreak of nuclear war between Russian and NATO forces in the Baltic went viral on WhatsApp and other chat platforms as a piece of breaking news.

Jamie Angus, director of the BBCs World Service Group, which serves a global audience of 346m on television, radio and online, says combating fake news has become the absolute priority for me in 2018 and that he is particularly concerned by the growth of the problem on chat services.

Angus says that chat apps are advancing incredibly quickly and that reacting to the emergence of fake BBC News reports on these platforms was an increasingly large part of my world as head of an operation that incorporates both the World Service and BBC World News, the BBCs most watched…